Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind · chapter 2 · id sapiens-c2-04-animal-communication-is-limite
“Animal communication is limited to signaling about immediate, concrete things. Only human language can refer to things that don't exist, discuss abstractions, and transmit unlimited information.”
TRUE, BUTconfidence: high⚠ extracted by pipeline, re-audit pending
Receipts
Seyfarth, Cheney & Marler (1980), Science 210(4471):801-803FLAGGED: DOI not in registry
Vervet monkeys produce distinct alarm calls for different predator classes (eagle, leopard, snake), each eliciting appropriate evasive responses. This is referential signaling, not mere emotional expression.
Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2002), Science 298(5598):1569-1578DOI registry: valid
The faculty of language in the narrow sense (recursion) may be uniquely human, but the broader faculty (including referential signaling, displacement) is shared with other species to varying degrees.
Slobodchikoff et al. (2009), Animal Cognition 12:435-439FLAGGED: DOI not in registry
Prairie dog alarm calls encode predator type, size, color, speed, and shape -- far more informationally rich than simple 'danger' signals.
This claim is a stable, citable object. If you can falsify a verdict, tell us. Corrections are loud here.